Does the Bible teach Hatred or Love?

Does the Bible teach Hatred or Love?

I was at church last night and I had a really bad sleep because of the message that was taught by our deacon. This is my childhood church, I have been going to this church since grade two, and have been exposed to Catholic doctrine all my life. Although I understand what the teacher was saying, I think he missed the message of Jesus while he was interpreting Luke 14:26 "If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters--yes, even their own life--such a person cannot be my disciple."

Taken literally that would mean that instead of fostering love in my relationships with other people I foster hatred. This is the problem I used to run into with a lot of evangelicals when Christians take this verse literally to foster hatred and bigotry in their heart. The doctrine of justification by faith is used as an excuse to not take the other teachings of Jesus literally and creates an environment of fear, where God's presence is pushed out of His church, and opens the door for man centered theology. In essence man becomes his own God, and need no longer respect and live in the presence and Grace of God. The saints knew that to go the Heaven we must not hate anyone.

When the bible talks about hating people it means we must prefer to be separated from all men and women, of course Heaven will be filled with people who chose God over earthly success, in order to be fully united to God. All it means is that God is to be our first love, but to tell the congregation to hate everyone is a sin against love. The bible also says "Love your neighbour as yourself" and unless you hate yourself you cannot become a Christian, but hating yourself means you love God more than you love yourself!

I know a lot of christians take this verse literally because they feel justified that their hatred for others qualifies them for God's love, but what they haven't learned yet is that no one qualifies for God's love because God's love is unconditional. The church has a really hard time accepting and showing unconditional love because of that damnation thing, and I just want to say that God loves everyone and His plan is that people who love God would live holy lives and live in His Presence, not apart from God.

The bible teaches that the highest form of self-expression is love. This is Mike. 1 Corinthians 13:13 (Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.)

Comments

Catholic Identity.

I was born into the Catholic Church and was baptized as an infant, I had my first communion and reconciliation as a child, and was confirmed as a teenager. Although I was never devout, I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Saviour when I was 21 through an evangelical Christian radio ministry, which in turn gave new life to my Catholic faith. Although I remained a Catholic, I identified as a born again Christian. It wasn’t until much later in my life that I learned the difference between the two denominations and what they taught about being born again. Regardless, there was a significant change in my life back then, which continues to this day. Being Catholic is much like an identity to me and I remember growing up under the papacy of St. Pope John Paul II. The culture I grew up in was largely affected by his papacy, and the way the culture viewed the church was significantly different from the way the current culture views it. Growing up, the pope didn’t try to be rele...

Age of Brokenness.

We are living in an age of brokenness, no matter what age you are, you probably have been touched with relationships falling apart, which causes more and more people to live in isolation. In this generation there is less of an incentive to heal and reconcile relationships, but that doesn’t excuse the amount of people who are broken. Why people don’t seem to be motivated to heal relationships is because our beliefs about faith and God have changed, really giving us less of an incentive to do what our religion says. If I act from my personal beliefs, but the person that I am responding to has abandoned religious beliefs, than the response to my wanting things to be better can be misinterpreted and rejected then by someone else. Generally when a society has expectations about broken relationships, loneliness and isolation, and the beliefs are generally accepted, society becomes a more compassionate society, because all value the same things. When religious values are undermined and ...

The Biblical Meaning of “Life in the Spirit.”

“Life in the Spirit” is an example that the Apostle Paul gives in the book of Romans starting in chapter 5 and going through to chapter 8. He begins by telling us we are justified by faith (5:1), and have gained access by faith into the grace of God (5:2). We have been delivered from God’s wrath (5:9) and we have been reconciled to God through the death of His Son (5:10). He goes on to explain that through Adam all die (5:12), and that the free Gift of God brings justification and righteousness to the believing sinner (5:15-17). Through our conversion we are baptized into Christ and into his death, which frees us from the law and makes us dead to sin (6:2-4). He explains that just as Christ was raised from the dead, we are given new life in Christ (6:4). Our old unregenerate self was crucified with Christ so that our body of sin might be done away with (6:5-6). Because we have died to sin, we now submit ourselves to God being that we are now under grace, not the law (6:8-1...

The Super Blogosphere of a parallel word.

Search This Blog